


The People Who Would Keep Us on Our Knees

by Sineala



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Angst, Avengers Vol. 7 (2017), Cap-Ironman Bingo, Civil War II (Marvel), Community: cap_ironman, Hydra Steve Rogers, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mind Control, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Not A Fix-It, Rape/Non-con Elements, Secret Empire (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-04 00:45:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10978833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: Tony wakes from his coma and finds a very different world than the one he remembers. Steve's in charge now. And Steve has missed him.





	The People Who Would Keep Us on Our Knees

**Author's Note:**

> For Cap-IM Bingo, the square "kink: mind-controlled sex." Hydra Steve was the only Steve I could think of who would be interested in this, so here is some Secret Empire fic featuring Steve doing some very morally dubious things to Tony. Warning for... uh... implied future mind-controlled non-con. Really not a fix-it.
> 
> Spoilers up through Secret Empire #2 and US Avengers #6.
> 
> Thanks to Amonae and Lanidzac for beta.

There's a blindfold over Tony's eyes and a bitter, chemical taste in his mouth. His shoulder stings like it's been a recent injection site. He's sitting upright. His wrists are bound together, weighted, his hands resting in his lap. He thinks his ankles are likewise fettered, but it's hard to tell without moving. Most disorienting of all, his connection to Extremis' outside network -- such as it is, since he lost the symbiote armor, since the world was remade -- has been severed. He's probably in a Faraday cage. That puts the likely perpetrators a cut above Tony's usual run of villains. Maybe it's those techno-ninjas. Maybe not.

The last thing he remembers--

Carol. He was fighting Carol. They were in DC. He was protecting Miles. Then his conscious memory is gone, seared away in the actinic light of a photon blast.

What the hell happened?

A hand brushes Tony's face. Strangely, his first impulse isn't to flinch away. Something about the touch is familiar, though he can't say what, or why. The hand is gloved; Tony feels the rasp of fabric and the harder planes of modern combat armoring material. He smells the familiar rich scent of leather. A uniform.

Friend or foe, he wonders. He considers the fact that Extremis is gone and that he's in restraints. It's not looking good.

Two fingers are hooked under the edge of his blindfold, and they tug upward, lifting the blindfold away.

Tony blinks into the dazzling light. His eyes water. They hurt like he's never seen the sun. He squints. Blurs of light and dark don't quite resolve. There's someone human-shaped, in a smeary blue outfit, sitting across from him, but he can't see for shit. He glances around, up and down, squinting through mostly-closed eyes, trying to gauge distances. He's in a narrow-walled room -- on one of SHIELD's helicarriers, maybe. Did Carol put him here? Is he her prisoner? Was this how the battle ended?

He doesn't remember.

He blinks again, a few more times. Tears run down his face and soak into his beard. He can finally see.

The man sitting opposite him is Steve. Steve is slouched back, almost indolently, into a plush chair. Tony, by contrast, is sitting on hard metal, shackled to his chair. Steve makes no move to untie him. There's a strange expression on his face: curious, gleeful, triumphant. It's an unusual look for Steve. It's almost cruel.

Steve's studying him, silently. And then an expression passes over his face that Tony's familiar with, one that in the old days was accompanied by remarks about how he'd missed Tony, how no one had ever called him Winghead like Tony did. Tony hasn't called him that in years, now.

And then Steve smiles.

"Hail Hydra."

Beyond his shock and disbelief, Tony knows that Steve is waiting for a reaction. His gaze is avid, his face bright. He's leaned in. He wants to savor this.

Step one, take him at his word. Steve is Hydra and Steve's chained him to a chair. Whatever's done this to him is unimportant, right now. The important part is that it currently seems to be true.

The way to resist, Tony knows, is not to give him anything.

"Well," Tony says, and it hurts his throat to talk. He makes his voice as bland as possible. Unimpressed. "I see I've missed a lot."

Steve's eyes narrow in frustration. "That's all you have to say?"

He'd thought Steve had seemed off, recently. He hadn't expected this. He wonders if any of the Avengers had seen Kang in him, for years and years, if they'd tried to tell themselves otherwise. He thinks Steve was expecting more of a reaction. He thinks maybe most people think Captain America could never be mind-controlled, could never be brainwashed, could never be anything other than perfect.

Tony's learned that anyone can disappoint you.

Tony tries to raise an eyebrow. He doesn't have full muscle control yet. He's not sure it works. "Steve, if you expect me to still put you on a pedestal, maybe you should have thought about that before the last time you tried to murder me with your bare hands."

Steve just glares. 

"You're going to tell me you're not surprised? About this?" Steve snorts. "During that whole Ulysses thing, you told me you'd learned to trust me."

That was when he'd started suspecting something, Tony thinks.

"I did," Tony says. "And you know what _you_ did, then? You asked me if I'd started drinking. We were finally on the same side. The same goddamn side. And you were cruel. That wasn't concern. That was cruelty. You said it to hurt me. Not because I'd done anything wrong. Not because I'd hurt you first, or because I was lying to you, or because I'd wiped your mind, or anything else we've come up with back when we actually disagreed. You said it because you _just wanted to hurt me_." Tony lifts his head. "So, no, I didn't expect this. But I knew there was something wrong."

And Steve... smiles. "Oh, I missed this," he murmurs, to himself. "There's really no one like you. No one as brilliant as you. You've been in a coma for six months," he adds, disdainfully. "Hydra runs everything now. And I run Hydra." His smile is immensely self-satisfied. "It's a new world, Tony. And I missed you. That was why I woke you up."

Jesus.

"Is this the part where you ask me to rule the galaxy at your side?" Tony asks. "Because I'm not interested."

"Mmm," Steve says, though he doesn't sound particularly dissuaded. "Sharon said no, too. She's under house arrest," he adds.

Tony rattles his wrists. "How nice for her."

"I could let you out," Steve says, and his voice is low and -- oh, goddammit -- sultry, and whoever this Steve is, whatever's happened to him, he's willing to use every trick that the real Steve isn't. "All you have to do is say two words. I think you know which."

Tony swallows hard. "Still not interested."

Steve's gaze hardens. "Do you know what happens, if you refuse?" He smiles. "Bucky's dead. Rick Jones was just executed yesterday." There's a flicker of something in his eyes that might be regret.

Tony's always been better at masks than Steve has. "Well," Tony says, "I guess you just have to ask yourself if I'm more like Bucky and Rick... or more like Sharon." He draws the statement out. He looks at Steve through his eyelashes, a deliberate flirtation, a move in a game Steve has never played with him.

Steve reaches out and sets his hand on Tony's leg. His fingers slide over Tony's inner thigh.

Tony supposes Steve's started playing after all.

"I'm not him," Steve whispers, and his lips part in a cruel smile. "The man you remember? I'm not him. He was never real. He was created by a Cosmic Cube. This was always the truth. I remember it now. And that other man, Tony? He's never coming back."

This is supposed to be an attack. A vicious wound. Tony makes himself smile back.

"Yeah, no," Tony says. "It doesn't work like that."

Steve blinks. "What?" He jerks upright. He takes his hand off Tony's thigh.

"Iron Man wasn't real either," Tony says. "Iron Man didn't exist until I made him. Until I told everyone I was him. And he became someone. He existed because the Avengers cared about him. Because he was their friend. Because he was your friend. And just because everyone knows I'm him, it doesn't mean he's not real. It's too late. I made him real." He meets Steve's eyes. "And you're real too. Whatever they did to you, whatever you think the truth is, that doesn't mean the past didn't happen. That doesn't mean you weren't... true and good and kind. And whatever you've been, you can be again."

Steve laughs. "Optimism? Really? I wouldn't have expected it."

"I was brainwashed for years, I murdered more than one person, and I died in your arms," Tony says, flatly. "For fuck's sake, there were three of me. You of all people should know that we can come back from anything."

There's a flash of unease in Steve's eyes. Steve leans back, and he pulls a small, flat case out of his belt pouch.

Tony realizes that there was always a plan B. The carrot and the stick.

"I'm the director of SHIELD now," Steve says, almost casually.

There's a job Tony will never remember doing. "I'm sorry I didn't send a card," Tony says, as artlessly as possible. "I think I was in a coma."

"Mmm." Steve hums again. "You know what I find honestly incredible? That after you knew Johann Fennhoff had infiltrated SHIELD, after you knew for a fact he'd compromised Sharon, you did nothing to make sure SHIELD agents were protected from his mental control thereafter." He smiles. "Maybe you had a lot on your mind back then. I suppose neither of us will ever know. I'm grateful, though."

Oh, God. He's got SHIELD. He's got all of SHIELD, all the government-affiliated groups. Except maybe Bobby da Costa and his AIM, Tony thinks. Xavier's kids always had psychic training--

"And don't think AIM will save you," Steve adds, like he knows exactly what Tony's thinking. That's Steve, a step ahead as always. "Da Costa's dead. The heavy hitters are locked away in space fighting the Chitauri, Strange and his ilk are in another dimension, and the civilian water supply is drugged."

"That's untenable," Tony says, and he doesn't know why he's picking holes in Steve's plan for him, but the Avengers' greatest tactical mind has got to realize there's a problem with drugging your own water supply. "You're fighting a war on multiple fronts and you can't possibly hope to win all of them. And since you haven't mentioned killing all the Avengers I'm going to assume there's active resistance. You can't win this. Even if you're Hydra, what the hell is Hydra good at? Nothing. They've always been a joke, and you know it. Bargain-basement fascism, now with shiny green and yellow uniforms." Tony feels his lips peel back in distaste. "You don't have the skills. You don't have the knowledge."

Steve taps his fingers on the case. "Well, that's what I have you for, Tony."

He can't possibly think Tony is going to say yes.

"You can't change my mind," Tony says. "I have failsafes. I have enough of Extremis left for that. Faustus won't work on me. And neither will whatever you've put in the water. You can't make me join you."

Steve opens the case. There's a syringe within.

Oh, God.

"I can, actually." Steve purses his lips. "We've reverse-engineered what's left of Extremis. Thank you for never locking me out of your passwords. You're awfully sentimental, you know."

"You wouldn't." Tony can hear the desperation in his voice.

Steve clicks his tongue. "I would, actually." He smiles again, a dark and crooked smile, like he knows a secret. "And the thing is, Tony, _so would you_."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" He can feel himself sweating. His palms are damp.

"Exactly that." Steve smiles. "I know what you want, Tony. You want to forget. You call yourself a control freak, and you are, but at the same time you want to not be in control. A paradox. Deep down, you want this, and you'll protest, and you'll say you don't, but I know you do. You'll always be an alcoholic. You'll always be weak, and you know that, and you hate it. But now? You'll never have to suffer. You'll know that what you're doing is right. It will make you happy. You'll never doubt yourself. The pain will be a distant memory. You want that. You've always wanted that, and you may hate yourself for it, but you know it's true."

Goddamn him. _Goddamn_ him.

Tony can't move as Steve reaches out and presses his palm to Tony's face.

"Nothing to say?" Steve murmurs. "It won't be bad. I love you. I've always loved you. You must know that."

And, okay, that hurts. Steve, the real Steve, had never said it. It had been unspoken, a desire belonging to the realm of what-if and maybe-someday. It wasn't going to happen. It certainly isn't ever going to happen now. Even if they get Steve back, he's never going to forgive himself.

Tony's voice, when he can summon it, is a harsh rasp. "What are you planning to do to me?"

"Nothing you won't want," Steve says. His thumb strokes Tony's jaw. A caress. "Nothing you wouldn't have wanted before." His mouth curves. "You'll like it. I know what you like."

Tony can't summon up a denial.

He can picture it, and that's the worst part. Steve's going to uncuff him, take him by the hand, lead him out of here. Steve will lead him into his own room. Tony imagines the director's quarters are tiny, utilitarian; he no longer remembers this personally. Steve won't have bothered to decorate. The bed will be small, and Steve will tumble him into it. Tony will go willingly. There will be no other options.

He can picture the way he always wanted it to happen, too: some long-ago day at Avengers Mansion, before they ever hurt each other, and they'd look at each other across the room, and they'd know. And one of them would say something, the way they never did. That's why it's a fantasy.

Back then, Tony was brainwashed. He didn't know it. Apparently they both were.

It's a funny place, the world.

"This is the part," Steve says, helpfully, "where you say you would never. Where you ask me to kill you first." He arches an eyebrow. His thumb smooths over Tony's neck, over the pulse of his carotid artery. He could crush Tony's throat if he wanted to.

"I'd rather die," Tony says, his voice hollow, as Steve sits back and uncaps the syringe. "You'd rather die too."

"I told you already." Steve smiles once more. He taps the bubbles out of the syringe with a flick of his finger, rolls Tony's sleeve up, rests the needle against Tony's skin. "The man who you think would have believed that? He never really existed. You're going to feel a little pinch, Tony."

The needle bites into Tony's arm, and when the drug hits him it's warm, like sunshine, and then everything's warm, the whole world's warm, and Steve's smiling at him so softly.

Steve leans in and kisses him. His mouth is sweet. "Hail Hydra," he whispers.

Tony doesn't say it back.

**Author's Note:**

> I would prefer not to discuss current canon in the comments, please. My opinion on Marvel's current storytelling and narrative choices is a whole other topic and I would rather not go there. I just wanted to write some angst, I had the "mind-controlled sex" bingo square, and this is the only Steve who I thought would be up for this.
> 
> If it makes you feel better, I'm sure that good will triumph over evil at some point in this story's universe. It just... hasn't yet.
> 
> [Tumblr post](http://sineala.tumblr.com/post/160977889229/fic-the-people-who-would-keep-us-on-our-knees), if you want one.


End file.
